The Future of Middle Schools.
In the past, children in many parts of the world and the United States received their education in small schoolhouses. They learned to diagram sentences in solitude and would recite their timetables in isolation. Even in the most remote areas, a single classroom can still house an entire school, from kindergarten through twelfth grade. However, in other parts of the world, innovative educators, architects, and social scientists are collaborating to create a new school system that is accelerated by the information age and integrated with it.
Most of this cutting-edge theory will be tested in middle schools, according to influential people in the education industry. Although psychoanalysts believe that the mental development that takes place between the ages of eleven and thirteen is crucial to the development of healthy, socially functional adults, the earliest years of a person’s education continue to be of the utmost importance.
Freud believed that middle school is the time when children’s egos were still developing. The personality part that grows in response to external factors is called the ego. It directs the innate, primitive aspects of the personality (the id) in the direction of achieving or maintaining the image of oneself that one wants the world to see. It does this by channeling and tempering those aspects. In the adolescent years, as students develop a true sense of self, the ego, which is still in its infancy during the early stages of education, bursts forth. Therefore, middle schools are the crucibles of the ego, and it is essential to ensure that students are nurtured and enriched at this stage.
Future middle schools will be designed to provide pre-teens and teens with a wide range of options for their “self.” Modern technology would not be able to provide the available options. The information age’s connectivity means that students can explore a wide range of subjects and develop a wide range of interests. Students can develop their interests by cross-pollinating with a world of learners in modern classrooms, which are outfitted with wireless internet and tablets or laptops.
However, online living is not the only aspect. With plenty of natural light and greenery inside the classroom, the cutting-edge schoolhouse lets students experience the outdoors. It was thought that windows would only distract students a generation ago. There is now a greater awareness of the fact that nature can serve as a classroom in and of itself, calming a student’s agitation. Educators ensure that students will not rush through the learning experience by incorporating the outdoors and providing the same aesthetic benefits that adults enjoy. Future middle schools will prepare students for a life of self-education and ongoing exploration by fostering students’ natural curiosity and connecting education with enjoyment.
